


Shipping and Handling

by grocketinmypocket



Category: Guardians of the Galaxy (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Crack, Alternate Universe - Fans & Fandom, Awkward Crush, Bestiality, Falling In Love, Fanfiction, Fantasizing, First Time, Fluff, Interspecies Romance, Love Confessions, M/M, Masturbation, Mutually Unrequited, Pet Names, Romance, Romantic Fluff, Roquill - Freeform, Shipping, Size Difference
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-10-15
Updated: 2014-10-16
Packaged: 2018-02-21 05:42:25
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 10,580
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2456906
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/grocketinmypocket/pseuds/grocketinmypocket
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Gamora ships Roquill. So does Peter. Rocket just wants to know who the hell all these crazy people are, writing weird stories and drawing dirty pictures of him and Peter, like they took the images right out of his head. When they decided to officially become the Guardians of the Galaxy, no one bothered to mention that one of the hazards of the job was having <i>fans</i>.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> **BAD NEWS, FOLKS. My fics are officially being abandoned. I'm sorry that I won't be finishing them, but my life has changed a geat deal in the year or so since my fics were written and I no longer have the time to write for fun.**
> 
> Just a couple of quick notes: ~~blame~~ thanks goes to the folks that join me in the [Roquill Shipper chat room](http://tinychat.com/grocketimpocket), where the idea for this fic came from, and to whom said fic is a love letter; also a big thank you to [alder_king](http://alder-king.tumblr.com/), who came up with the title, thus saving you all from yet another hack song lyric title.

Of _course_ Peter was the first one to find out about it. He came back from a trip to a marketplace on Xandar, brimming with glee and laden with shopping bags, demanding that everyone present themselves in the common area for a surprise. Rocket was immediately skeptical -- surprises, in his view, were uniformly negative, as the surprises he got usually consisted of warrants for his arrest or guns shoved in his face. The smug, manic look of delight on on Peter's face didn't make him any less suspicious.

Once everyone was grumpily assembled, he announced that he had bought t-shirts for everyone, and Rocket was already worried about what kind of fucking t-shirt he could have gotten them that made him look so maniacally happy. When he started pulling shirts out of the bags and tossing them at everyone, Rocket knew he'd been right to worry. Even before he unfolded the swath of black cloth Peter had thrown in his direction, he could see that Gamora was holding hers up and scowling at it in confusion, and when she turned it around so that Rocket could see the front, he knew he was going to have to kill someone, somewhere, for this.

He unfolded his own, and glared down at it. There was a picture of himself on the goddamn thing, brandishing his gun in a heroic pose. Above his head was emblazoned _ROCKET RACCOON_ , and below the image: _GUARDIAN OF THE GALAXY_.

"What the fuck is this shit? Did you have these made, you weirdo?" Rocket asked with disgust.

"I didn't have to! We have merchandise, guys! We're famous, this stuff was all over the market. There are t-shirts, and toys, and -- look!" He reached into the bags again, pulling out more items. "I found a lunch box, which is mine, I'm keeping it, and action figures -- the Star-Lord figure has a removable helmet, it's so cool -- and this." He pulled out a stuffed toy that was made in Rocket's image. " _LOOK_. It's adorable."

"Give me that," Rocket snarled, seething. A fucking stuffed animal. Fucking humiliating.

"No!" Peter said, clutching it to his chest. "This one's mine, get your own."

"I am going to set that thing on _fire_. Give it to me." A five-minute scuffle between them broke out, Peter holding the toy above his head. When Rocket dug his claws into Peter's clothing and scaled his body like he was climbing Groot, Peter's laughter turned into helpless screams because Rocket had no sense of fair play or restraint and was willing to go hard or go home.

"Gimme me that goddamn thing! Give it!" Rocket was wrapping himself around Peter's throat like a boa and reaching up for the doll, as Peter waved it frantically over his head, turning in circles as Rocket snarled and snapped his teeth and grabbed for the toy in vain.

"He's on my neck oh jesus get him off me _get him off me_ \--" 

Gamora had to separate them, after allowing them to slap and sputter at each other for a little while -- but when Peter started bleeding from a nicked ear, she stepped in.

"Rocket, stop trying to take Peter's toy," she said, peeling Rocket off of Peter and holding him up in the air while his arms and legs windmilled as if he could somehow propel himself at Peter with sheer rage alone. "Peter, stop teasing the other children."

"Yeah, Rocket, it's mi -- Hey! Fine, be that way, Gamora, I won't give you the really cool action figure of you I found then," Peter said sulkily, still holding the Rocket doll with one hand and fussing over his bleeding ear with the other. 

Across the room, both Drax and Groot had donned their respective t-shirts, even though Groot's was a little stretched out by now from being pulled over his head, and Drax's was stretched even more from being forced down over his bulging muscles. Groot's shirt featured him as an adorable little seedling in a pot, even though by now he was fully grown again, and Drax's shirt showed him leaning toward the viewer with a snarl on his face and his knives crossed in front of him. Gamora shrugged and put hers on too -- she was depicted in a graceful, almost dancer-like pose, sword drawn and bi-colored hair flying.

When Peter took off his long leather coat to check it for Rocket-damage, Rocket saw that he was wearing a team t-shirt, with all of them gathered together under a Guardians of the Galaxy logo. In the image, Rocket was leaning against Peter's leg and holding a little pot with a tiny Groot in it, rather than sitting on a full-size Groot's shoulder, and Rocket realized it was probably because none of the witnesses had actually seen Groot with them -- he was already in pieces by then. On the shirt, Peter also had one hand on top of Rocket's head, as if he was petting him. Rocket hated the shirt immediately and wanted to see it in shreds, so of course Peter was probably going to wear it constantly.

"I'm gonna get that fucking doll and then I'm gonna blow it out the airlock," Rocket swore as Gamora finally released him and set him back on his feet.

"Good luck with that, I'm sleeping with it from now on. It's ADORABLE, _LOOK AT IT_." He actually cuddled the toy to his face, and that was it, Rocket was absolutely done.

He turned on his heel and stalked away, because this was too much, he was not going to stand there and watch Peter humiliate him like this. Not just with the sheer existence of such a thing, reducing him to a dumb-looking animal, but the sight of Peter holding the thing, promising to sleep with it, calling it adorable -- Rocket was sure that Peter was unaware of how stupidly in love with him he was, and he didn't think that even if he did know that he would deliberately tease him like this, but this was unbearable and he didn't have to stay here and put up with it.

"Rocket, wait -- I'm sorry, I just thought it was cute," Peter called after him, but he didn't stop until he was in his quarters behind a locked door.

=====

He stayed there until it became absolutely necessary to eat, and when he saw Peter in the galley, he almost chose starvation over supper. As late as it was, Peter was in the galley in a t-shirt and pajama bottoms, which was not unusual...except that the t-shirt bore an image of himself and Rocket, side by side, with their guns blazing. The pants were printed with a repeating pattern: Rocket's face, Peter's Star-Lord helmet and blasters, and a Guardians of the Galaxy logo, all against a teal and orange polka dot background. They were gaudy and bright and _horrible_.

"What is _wrong_ with you?" Rocket asked in despair.

Peter set down the glass of juice he'd been pouring and turned to face him. "Look, Rocket, let me have this, okay? All I ever wanted to be when I was a kid was a superhero. I had t-shirts and action figures and lunch boxes of all my heroes, and I wanted to be one of them more than anything. And now I am. It's my face on the lunch box, and I just want to enjoy it. Please don't ruin this for me. If it bothers you, I won't wear any stuff with you on it, all right? That sucks, because the stuff with you on it is my favorite, but if it'll make you feel better..."

The look on Peter's face made him feel weirdly guilty -- he had a perfect right to be offended that his image had been plastered all over toys and shirts, but Peter's obvious distress at Rocket's attitude toward all this shit made him feel a pang of regret for being the one that put that distress on his face.

"Just keep it away from me," Rocket said, glaring hatefully at his own image. On the shirt, his double pressed his shoulder against Peter's, fighting as a team, looking brave and determined. _At least my merchandising image can get close to him,_ he thought sourly. The repeating pattern with his own face in it haunted him, and when Peter turned back to the counter, the sight of his face all over Peter's ass was burned into his retinas and would probably haunt him now too. Something as freakish and disgusting as himself had no business being so close to someone as perfect as Peter. Or his perfect ass. He'd been making do with Peter's friendship for a long time now, and this was just going to make it that much harder.

He squared his shoulders and climbed up onto the counter next to Peter, steadfastly ignoring his presence as he reached up into the cabinet where the protein bars were kept. He was the only one who really ate them, but they kept ending up in the top cabinet and he refused to bring it up, because it would only highlight how short and useless he was. Peter's hand entered his vision, plucking the box he'd been reaching for off the high shelf and putting it in Rocket's hand.

"There you go, man. I keep telling Drax to stop putting them up there, but he forgets," Peter said easily, walking towards the stairs with his glass of juice. Rocket turned to watch him leave, and even though he was furious and humiliated, he was touched, as he always was, that Peter thought so much of him. He never had been able to stop himself from watching Peter when he wasn't aware, even though it made him feel like a traitorous pervert. Peter was his friend, had never been anything but kind to him, never slipped up and called him animal or vermin or freak, never treated him with anything less than respect -- and here he was, watching Peter's ass as he walked away. Grabbing at scraps of attention from him, storing up mental images to revisit alone in his bunk at night. He was ashamed of himself.

The disgust and self-loathing was a familiar companion by now, even more familiar than the way he felt his heart pound and the air turn to vacuum when he thought about Peter. When he had first felt it, he'd thought something in his cybernetics was failing, or maybe that his life span -- the length of which was a mystery to him; if he had no idea what he was, how could he know how long to expect to live? -- had finally run down like a bomb timer.

When he'd realized it only happened when Peter was around, or when he thought about him, he'd almost packed up his stuff and taken Groot and left. He'd never even thought twice about a human before, and now he was in love with one. A _Terran_ , no less. It was intolerable to stay, but the thought of leaving was worse. He knew very well the kind of reckless, suicidal bullshit Peter Quill got up to and into if you didn't watch him like a fucking nursemaid; if Rocket left the idiot would be dead inside a month. He'd started maneuvering himself into being partnered with Peter whenever it was necessary for the team to split up, just to protect the dumbass, and had been secretly pleased when Peter had fallen into choosing him as his back-up all on his own. Peter seemed to look out for Rocket just as much as Rocket did for Peter, and he'd lost count of how many times each had saved the other.

The worst part -- or the best, Rocket could never quite determine -- was that Peter had developed a habit of calling Rocket sugary-sweet pet names while they fought together. Shit like "Ready, baby?" or "After you, sugar-plum." Rocket vacillated between answering him with "Always, snookums," and " _You_ go first, dipshit." The degree to which he reciprocated varied with how lovesick or angrily resentful he was at any given time. It stung and warmed him at the same instant, and he'd never gotten around to asking Peter to cut it out, or making up his mind how he felt about it.

Remembering the way Peter called him _baby_ or _sweetie_ or _darlin'_ had featured in his fantasies over and over and he was starting to be dangerously distracted on missions because just hearing it got him hard. Peter was going to get him killed one of these days. Gamora had asked him once why he adjusted his privates so often, and he would have rather died instantly than admit the real reason -- he'd snapped something about having big swinging balls and she'd left the room in disgust, but at least she hadn't mentioned it again.

It actually was kind of true; for whatever fucked-up, perverse reason, he was made with a human-like cock, and from what he could gather, he was sporting a normal-human-sized set of goods on his three and a half foot tall frame. Of _course_ he was going to have issues with crotch room -- Peter calling him every endearment ever during battle was obviously not going to help with that, and none of it was Rocket's fault.

He threw the wrapper from his tasteless protein bar supper into the recycler and trudged down to his quarters, resigned by now that he would have to jerk off again before he could get any sleep. Thinking about Peter calling him baby was a potent trigger, and he was painfully hard. Peter Quill was ruining his fucking life. The merchandise bullshit was just yet another manifestation of that. He thought that if Peter would just keep the worst of it out of his sight -- namely the shit with Rocket all over it, especially that goddamn horrible doll -- he could go back to his usual level of angry, heartsick devotion, and things would go back to normal.

=====

Peter was as good as his word, and only wore the shirts he'd bought with his own or the other's faces on them. Even the coffee mugs and plates that occasionally appeared in the galley were Rocket-free, and he was grateful. Peter seemed to take such a gleeful joy in having his very own superhero merchandise that Rocket thought it would almost be cute if he wasn't still so personally pissed about the mere existence of a stuffed animal made to look like himself. He'd become so used to seeing the other's faces on random bits of his surroundings that he had almost entirely tuned it out as visual noise by the time he overheard Gamora and Peter talking in the common area.

"Gamora, you need to STOP," Peter was hissing at her, and Rocket hung back by the stairwell door, unwilling to get in the middle of it if Gamora lost her temper. He loved Peter, but he had no desire to die himself at Gamora's hands. He'd thrown himself in front of various threats to Peter's safety more times than he could remember, but this was Gamora, not some goon with a blaster.

"You know you love it," Gamora was saying smugly, arms crossed and smirking at Peter.

"That's not the point," Peter said vehemently. "If he ever finds out I'm reading this stuff, he'll kill me. Not you, he won't kill _you_ , he'll kill _me_. As hard as possible, in the face. With that big fucking gun of his. Please stop sending me links, please stop sending me fan art, please just STOP."

"You'll just go look it up on your own," Gamora said sadly. "You won't know where to find the well-written ones, or the best AUs. I just found one with you two as characters from that Terran movie you showed us, Star Wars."

"Is that the one where he's Han and I'm Chewbacca? It was okay, but you know I don't like crack, I'd rather see the shippy ones with a lot of slow burn and actual plot between the -- _oh my god_ why am I still discussing this with you? Please don't send me any more."

"Unless you ask me. And you will," Gamora said cheerily. 

"Fine, I'm gonna send you a link to a really filthy one I found of you and Nebula. See how you like it," Peter said, heartily offended.

"You know we aren't biological sisters, don't you? And that story probably won't be _nearly_ as kinky as what she and I actually did." Gamora strolled away, tossing her variegated-colored hair, and Rocket ducked back into the stairwell before Peter could turn around and see him.

"Why are you like this?" Peter was asking Gamora's retreating back. "God, why am I like this?" he asked the empty room as Gamora entered the stairwell.

"You're gonna tell me what the hell that was about or I will make your life a fucking misery of such epic proportions that having Thanos for a dad will seem like a happy memory," Rocket told her when she saw him at the bottom of the stairs. 

Gamora narrowed her eyes at him, considering her response as she descended the stairs. "Do you really want to know? I'm happy to share, but are you sure you want me to?" Gamora stopped at the landing next to him, watching him.

"He was talking about me, wasn't he? I have a right to know."

"All right," Gamora said, and her smile made Rocket suddenly feel a thrill of fear. The most dangerous woman in the galaxy was looking at him like she was about to spring some kind of attack on him. He felt like a small, helpless prey animal, looking down the barrel of a predator's grin. He refused to reconsider, however, and followed her to her quarters when she beckoned.

She sat down on her bed and pulled out a tablet, bringing up a browser window and loading her bookmarks. She handed it to Rocket, and he struggled for a moment to make sense of what he was reading. A search query was open on some kind of fiction site: "Peter Quill/Rocket Raccoon -- Roquill Shipping Fic." Beneath the heading was a list of results, all with romantic-sounding titles and with some kind of summary beneath each one. He glanced up at Gamora, who was practically vibrating in her seat with excitement.

"What the fuck is this?"

"The merchandise was just the beginning, Rocket. We have fans -- thousands of people who consider us heroes, admire us, create art and stories about us. They engage in a practice called 'shipping,' and write romantic fictional stories about us."

"Us?" Rocket asked in shock, gesturing between them.

"No, actually. I have never seen a story where you and I are paired together, unless it's an OT5. I am usually paired with Nebula, or Drax." She looked a little sad when she spoke of Nebula, and Rocket had to remind himself that even if she was a psychotic, fucked-up bitch, she and Gamora had been raised together. "However, the most popular pairing, out of us all, is you and Peter."

_"What?!"_ Rocket's eyes snapped back to the tablet, and he paid closer attention to what he was reading. Every story summary was a variation on the same theme: he and Peter falling in love, he and Peter having sex, he and Peter pining over each other before revealing their mutual attraction. It was _insane_. It was if these weirdos had reached right into his brain and splashed everything he felt, everything he fantasized about Peter, onto a screen for the entire galaxy to see.

"Why would people _do_ something like this?!" he screeched, infuriated. "Why would they even _think_ this?"

"It varies. Some people seem to think there is attraction between you two, based on what they believe they know of your personalities. Others just want to see the, and this is a quote, 'two hottest Guardians get it on.' You have many admirers of your own, Rocket -- I would say even more than Peter." She took the tablet from him and switched tabs, to another of her bookmarks, handing it back to him. "Look, this is a chat room where they discuss you and Peter."

Text appeared on the screen as Rocket watched and read. 

rocket_raccoon: why does his tragic backstory make him so much hotter omg why  
iheartrocket: because ANGST  
iheartrocket: so much more delicious when he & peter get past his trauma & fuck like crazy  
peter_loves_rocket: did anyone see the holo on the news of peter carrying rocket after he got hurt?  
guardmygalaxy: omg so romantic  
guardmygalaxy: i died, it killed me, i'm haunting this chat room now  
peter_loves_rocket: the size difference thing is destroying me  
peter_loves_rocket: they look so perfect together  
iheartrocket: rocket is perf, period, no discussion  
rocket_raccoon: hottest guy in the guardians, sorry peter rocket is just sexier than you  
guardmygalaxy: oh peter knows why do you think he wants some of that raccoon peen so bad?

He glanced over at the side of the chat and saw that the name Gamora apparently used in there was shippedroquill1st.

Rocket let the tablet drop to his lap and stared at the opposite wall for a little while, brain buzzing. Gamora said nothing, and when he shoved the tablet at her and and walked out, she said only, "I'll send you some links."

"Okay," Rocket answered absently, and almost opened Peter's door by mistake before he realized he was on the wrong side of the corridor. Correcting himself, he went into his own quarters and shut the door. There was too much information rolling around in his head to be assimilated all at once, and he felt restless and strange and breathless. Peter had been reading stories about them, he realized. Had been trading them back and forth with Gamora, apparently. And all these other people -- what the hell was all that about? They had said he was hot, that he was perfect -- they seemed to know about his past, knew what he was, and it seemed to only make them love him more.

His own tablet beckoned from the table beside the bed, and as he glanced over, he heard a chime, indicating that Gamora had sent him something. He was almost afraid to look -- as shaky and unsteady and love-drunk as thinking about Peter always made him, looking at the things people had written about them seemed a thousand times more intense. It was like looking at the contents of his own brain.

And Peter had been reading it, too.

He walked to the desk, picked up the tablet, and powered it on. Gamora had sent him a long series of messages, the first one reading at the top: _"You left before I could even show you any fan art. -- G."_

Under that was a set of thumbnail images, and the bottom dropped out of his gut just from seeing the tiny, pixilated squares. He could make out enough detail to see that most of them were of he and Peter having sex -- with varying degrees of explicitness and varied depictions of Rocket's penis -- mixed in with sweetly romantic images of them cuddling or dancing to Peter's walkman, along with a few that seemed to be pin-ups of Rocket on his own. He clicked through a few of the tamer ones, feeling his cheeks burn under his fur at the gentle, loving scenes they depicted, and then clicked on the first of the explicit images.

He stopped blushing immediately, because all the blood in his body had rushed to his cock. In the image he had chosen, he was sitting naked against the head of a bed, with Peter sprawled between his thighs, sucking him off with drooling enthusiasm. It was obscene and it was shocking and it was the hottest goddamn thing he'd ever seen, straight out of his fantasies. Peter had told Gamora to stop sending him fan art, so he had probably seen this. Seen himself sucking Rocket off.

He groaned out loud, helplessly, and yanked the zipper of his jumpsuit down, sitting down on the edge of his bunk and pulling his cock out with one hand while holding the tablet with the other. He jerked himself roughly, feeling as if he was sitting outside himself and watching, fantasizing about Peter kneeling in front of him and taking his cock down his throat, just like in the picture. He came quicker than he ever had in his life, breathing harshly and shaking from the force of it when it was over. He got up and washed his hands at the sink in the corner, and then came back to the bed and picked up the tablet again.

Gamora's next message said: _"Sending you links to my favorite stories. They're categorized by genre: shippy is the two of you falling in love, fluff is the two of you being cute and affectionate, AU is alternate universe, smut is self-explanatory. If you go looking on your own, stay away from stories marked angst, you won't like them. -- G."_

The list underneath was longer than he had expected. How long had Gamora been looking at this stuff? It only now occurred to him to be embarrassed that she had seen images that might as well have been beamed directly from his skull of he and Peter fucking. Going by this list -- the last third was made up entirely of links marked smut -- she'd read about them fucking more than he was comfortable with, as well.

Steeling himself, he sat down at the head of the bed -- and from now until the day he died, whenever he sat this way he would see that image of Peter sucking his cock projected onto the back of his eyeballs -- and started to read through the links Gamora had sent. He read a few of the milder, shippy and fluffy stories first, and was surprised to find that almost all of them had Peter calling him the same things he did in battle -- sweetie, baby, honey, sugar -- as if it was common knowledge. Maybe footage of them in a fight had surfaced somewhere? He found himself squirming and twitching as he read, the utter adorableness of how he and Peter were depicted, loving and cherishing each other, making him feel jumpy and thrilled and agitated, as well as scathingly jealous of the Rocket that was described in the stories. 

The notes at the beginning of one story stated that the author had done extensive research on Terran Southern American dialect to get the sugary-sweet nicknames as accurate as possible, and Rocket was starting to wonder about these people's priorities. He knew he was right to wonder when the next story, the first smut he had decided to read, went into great detail about Rocket's penis -- the author assumed that he had the same endowment as whatever animal it was he was supposed to be -- and described his dick as curved, thin, and containing a bone, of all things. He backed out of the story and hunted through the rest of the messages Gamora had sent, looking for a link to the chat room. He was going to clear this bullshit up, right now.

Once he had found the link, he was confronted with a login page that required him to choose a username. "rocketraccoon," he typed in, only to be told that the username was already taken. He tried "rocketraccoon1." Also taken. He was unable to log in until he finally typed in "rocketraccoon345." Jesus, how many of these people were there? Once in the chat room, he watched for a few minutes, and when someone brought up the subject of his penis -- and how weird was his life that he'd only had to wait for five minutes before some complete stranger was chatting casually about his dick? -- he jumped into the conversation.

rocketraccoon345: you people are all crazy, i've got a human-type dick you morons  
peter_loves_rocket: new rp-er? not many like to rp rocket with a humanoid cock, we all prefer the raccoon peen  
guardmygalaxy: ALL HAIL THE RACCOON PEEN  
guardmygalaxy: have you accepted the gospel of the raccoon peen into your life?  
rocketraccoon345: what the fuck's an rp-er?  
rocketraccoon345: AND I DON'T HAVE A RACCOON PENIS YOU ASSHOLES  
guardmygalaxy: role playing  
rocketraccoon345: so people pretend to be me?  
iheartrocket: i'll rp with you  
iheartrocket: i have this idea for a deliciously angsty rp where rocket gets captured and tortured by thanos and then peter rescues him and they have healing sex  
rocketraccoon345: you people are fucked up  
rocketraccoon345: i don't even know what to say about this shit  
rocketraccoon345: EXCEPT THAT I HAVE A HUMAN DICK GET USED TO IT  
rocketraccoon345: STOP MAKING ME EVEN MORE OF A FREAK THAN I ALREADY AM

Before Rocket could continue his diatribe, a message flashed across the chat room: _User rocketraccoon345 has been banned. User rocketraccoon345 has disconnected._

Angrily he tossed the tablet down on the bed, lying back and looking up at the ceiling. These people were all insane. What were they seeing between he and Peter that Rocket didn't? Was it possible that they were right, that Peter could be interested in him? Were they right that Rocket himself was not the hideous, disgusting freak that he'd always thought he was?

_Remember that those freaks were also talking about my dick like it was the fucking weather and had it completely wrong,_ he reminded himself. _They don't know anything about me, or Peter._ He sighed, picked up the tablet again, and clicked on the next link under the heading Gamora had marked "smut." These people might not know shit, but the stories and art were undeniably hot -- it was like a treasure-trove of custom-made pornography, starring he and Peter, and he could no more stay away from the temptation of it than he could change how he felt about Peter. He settled in to read again, leaving his jumpsuit unzipped, and finally fell asleep, tablet in one hand and cock in the other, several hours and several orgasms later. He would worry about how the hell he would ever face Peter again later, after he'd glutted himself on imagining a life he would never get to lead, and someone he would never get to actually love.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Gamora is a shipper. She's also a lying liar who lies. Peter would feel more betrayed, if her manipulations weren't working out in his own -- and Rocket's -- favor.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here's Peter's POV. Warning: Peter is a sappy romantic. Prepare to squirm over fluff.

"Gamora, I told you to stop," Peter typed angrily, wishing that Gamora wasn't so determined to see her favorite ship get together in real life that she was willing to bring all the skills her tutelage under Thanos had taught her to bear on his goddamn sex life. She was relentless, remorseless, could not be reasoned with -- he'd even offered her units if she would stop digging up and sending him porn that she knew would be perfect for him. Why he had ever talked to her about this, he had no idea, only that perhaps he'd forgotten that he was dealing with a dangerous, hardened killer -- one who now seemed to prefer sending him yet another unrequited love fic in favor of actually stabbing him.

The mutually-unrequited fics were the best, even better, really, than the filthy PWPs that Gamora seemed to prefer -- which was all kinds of unsettling, given that the characters engaging in filth were him and his best friend, who was sleeping right across the hall and who would be murderously appalled at the things Peter thought and read about him. Once Peter had jokingly asked Gamora, if he and Rocket actually did get together, would she want to watch? She had simply gazed at him with a tiny smile and never actually said no. He'd had a combination-platter nightmare/wet dream that night about having sex with Rocket while Gamora sat in a folding chair by the bed, taking notes.

The unrequited fics were his favorite because it was the closest he could get to having his actual life turn out the way he wanted: to find out that Rocket was as in love with him as he was with Rocket. Falling in love had come long before the fan fiction -- he'd been nursing a crush on Rocket ever since they met. He'd been conflicted, freaked out, and ashamed at first, worrying that it was wrong, that he was a sick freak. There had been long silent arguments with himself about the ethics of sexualizing someone who had once been an animal, and fretting over calling what he felt for Rocket bestiality, and by the time he'd settled his mind on all accounts -- whatever Rocket may have been, he was now sentient and not only was he a person, he was Peter's _favorite_ person, and that the body he was in was animal-shaped didn't matter -- he was so deep in love that even if he'd come to the conclusion that he was in the wrong, it wouldn't have changed anything.

When he'd found the merchandise, and then the fanfic, he'd been shamefully thrilled to have some way to indulge his fantasies. He hadn't gotten rid of any of the merch with Rocket's image on it, just kept it in his quarters. He liked having it because it meant he could at least look at his picture as long as he wanted without setting off some sixth sense that told Rocket he was being stared at. The fan fiction was an escape, and it wasn't healthy, and he knew he needed to stop before Rocket found out somehow. He knew it would upset him; he probably wouldn't understand, and would be furious, and might even leave, which Peter didn't think he could bear. He kept telling Gamora to stop enabling him, stop feeding his stupid, hopeless love, but she just calmly and sweetly shoved another link under his nose and smiled.

Like he knew she was doing now, in her quarters at the end of the hall. He didn't want to click on the link, knew he shouldn't. He veered his finger away from the link and went back to typing.

"Please just don't do this. It's fucked up for us to be reading this stuff, he's our friend. I don't want him to find out, okay?" Peter typed and sent.

 _"You should talk to him. You should tell him,"_ Gamora replied.

"No, he'll freak out and leave."

 _"I don't think he will. I really, really don't, Peter."_ A pause, and then: _"Tell me what you think of the story later. It's got all the sweet names and cuddling you like, and romantic smut."_

"Enabler," Peter typed with resignation. He would read it, he knew.

 _"You love it,"_ Gamora replied, and then went silent. Peter turned his attention to the story, ashamed and repelled by his own abuse of Rocket's trust and friendship, and started reading anyway.

=====

The next morning cycle, after Peter had changed out of his pajamas and into clothing before leaving his quarters -- he'd promised he wouldn't wear anything with Rocket's face on it in Rocket's sight, but he still slept in them -- he found Rocket in the galley, pouring himself a cup of coffee. The sight stopped him dead in his tracks. Rocket referred to coffee as "shitty boiled bean-water" and turned his nose up at it -- now he was stealing the first cup from the pot before Peter had even touched it.

"Why are you drinking coffee?" he asked, and Rocket visibly jumped before collecting himself and turning around, cup in hand.

"Couldn't sleep last night," Rocket said, and he looked like it: fur mussed, eyes bleary, shoulders slumped and tired-looking. He took a sip of the black-as-jet coffee and made the most intense expression of disgust that Peter had ever seen, face screwed up like it was an imploding star. He thunked the cup back down on the counter and jumped away from it for good measure, glaring at it as if it had personally offended him and his honor.

"I don't think coffee is what you need, man. Just go back to bed, I'll take your shift at the helm." Peter was resisting the impulse to just pick Rocket up, carry him to his quarters, and tuck him into bed. He wouldn't actually do it, because Rocket had to be either dead drunk or badly wounded before he would allow Peter to pick him up, and Peter felt like a fucked up weirdo that he actually kind of looked forward to Rocket drinking himself into a blackout so that he could carry him back to the ship.

"You sure?" Rocket asked, looking relieved. 

"Yeah, just go get some sleep." He wanted to go with him, make sure he laid down and actually slept. More than that, Peter wanted to lie down beside him and watch him sleep. That was one of his favorite details, when it showed up in a fic -- lying beside him in the dim of his quarters, watching his chest rise and fall, watching his ears twitch gently as if he was dreaming. And it would never happen.

Rocket trudged back toward the stairs, and Peter watched him go, wishing it was like fan fiction -- he would take Rocket's shift for him, and then when he was done, he would go to Rocket's bunk and climb in beside him, wrap himself around him, and wake him up with kisses and whispered sweet names. That would also never happen. 

He picked up the cup that Rocket had taken a single sip from, and added cream and sugar before taking a drink himself. He was far gone enough for his best friend that he closed his eyes when his lips touched the cup where Rocket's had. When he opened them again, he was ready to cover for Rocket's shift, watch the stars roll by the viewscreen, and obsess over what he couldn't have. He headed up to the cockpit and strapped in, coffee cup still in hand, and he closed his eyes every time he drank from it until it was empty.

=====

Peter was deeply suspicious of whatever was going on with Rocket and Gamora. Being that he was a con man and thief, he maintained a general level of suspicion regarding just about everyone and everything, purely as a matter of course. Growing up in a fleet of savage space pirates had done little to teach him how to trust. He trusted his team mates more than anyone he had ever known, save for his mother, and still he scrutinized their behavior and habits constantly, looking for tells and tip-offs that they weren't being honest -- about what, he wasn't sure. But he watched for it, regardless.

Now he was seeing all kinds of disturbing tells that Rocket was betraying. Gamora was unchanged, but then again, she was _Gamora_. Rocket's behavior around her had changed, though -- he spent a lot more time with her, sometimes reminded her to check for a message from him, slanted his eyes at her occasionally in silent communication when Peter was in the room. It looked, from the outside, just like Peter's own behavior regarding Gamora and Rocket and the fan fiction. He just didn't have any proof one way or the other.

He couldn't outright ask Rocket -- what would he say? "Hey there, Rocket, you wouldn't happen to be reading dirty gay fan fic about the two of us, would you?" There was no good way for that conversation to end: either yes, he had, and thought it was hilarious, and would unknowingly crush Peter's soul if he laughed; or no, he hadn't, but now knew that it existed and was about to violently flip his shit in offended rage.

Asking Gamora would get him nowhere, because she was Gamora.

He fretted and worried and wondered, unable to make himself ask Rocket about it. He was on the verge of a nervous breakdown, strung out from analyzing every word Rocket spoke to him, every action and nuance of behavior. He spent his evenings working out in the cargo hold, hoping to exhaust himself enough to at least get some sleep without waking up in a panic, a particular image or story in mind, mortally terrified that Rocket had seen or read it. He was at the bottom of the stairs leading down to the habitation deck, dragging himself back to his quarters after yet another workout, when he heard the door to Gamora's quarters open, and voices drift out into the hall. He stayed where he was, quiet and still, and listened while berating himself for being a creepy creeper.

"Look, warn me next time that you're sending me one of yours, okay? That's a degree too weird for me," Rocket was saying, and Peter guessed he was standing in the doorway of Gamora's room, as if preparing to leave.

"But you liked it, right?" Gamora said.

"Of course I did, but it still wasn't fair. You took everything I told you in private and put it in a fic! Next thing I know you'll be taking pictures of us and altering them so we're making out or something." A beat of silence. "No, _no_ , do not take that as a personal challenge, goddammit. I know that look."

"If you would just talk to him, I wouldn't _have_ to write fic or manipulate images," Gamora said.

"And if you would just tell me what he thinks of the whole thing, I would know whether I even want to talk to him or not. So help me, if you say you're staying impartial about this one more time, I'm going to find some way to kick your ass," Rocket said.

"I'm not going to hand this to you, Rocket. If you can't talk to him about it, then you are not ready for it," Gamora said serenely, and Peter knew Rocket was probably just as tired of that bullshit as he was. "But you should talk to him. You might be surprised at his reaction."

"Oh, no, I know exactly what to expect. He probably thinks it's all funny, just a big joke. Him, with a freak like me? I don't need to hear him say it to know what he thinks. Just let me have this and be happy with what I can get, okay?"

"All right, Rocket. Just -- think about talking to him," Gamora said, sounding kinder and gentler than Peter had ever heard.

Rocket's footsteps moved away from her door and closer to where Peter hid, and he panicked. He quickly crept back up the stairs, needing time to think, and knowing Rocket could come around the corner and catch him at any moment. He headed up to the cockpit, told Drax to go to bed and let him take over, and sat staring at the stars without seeing them for a very long while. His mind was racing, turning over everything Rocket had said, trying to find a way to add up their conversation and puzzle out the solution, and repeatedly coming up with the same sum.

Rocket had been reading the same stuff as him, and liked it. That he'd told Gamora how he felt about Peter, and that she'd used it in a fic. Rocket thought that Peter considered it a joke, and it had been obvious from Rocket's wounded tone of voice that it was anything but a joke to him. _Just let me have this and be happy with what I can get, okay?_ Rocket thought he was a freak, that Peter would never want him -- and Peter was going to goddamn well make _sure_ that Rocket understood just how untrue both of those statements were, just as soon as he possibly could.

No matter how he thought it over, the conclusion remained the same: Rocket wanted him.

He sat back in the pilot's chair, stunned and warm with this new knowledge. He had to talk to him, but he wanted to be careful, wanted to do it right. He'd never had a serious relationship before -- he'd never actually trusted anyone enough before. He had always had a deep, broad romantic streak in him, but there had never been anyone he felt safe showing it to. It was easier to settle for casual fucks with strangers whose names he'd forgotten by the time the _Milano's_ airlock was sealing behind him. If he didn't let them in on the secret of how gentle and loving he'd always wanted to be, they couldn't wound that soft part that Yondu would have had him flogged for showing.

He had to decide how he was going to do this. Would it be better to just be honest, say he'd been reading the fic and loved it, and oh by the way, loved Rocket? Or just a straight-up declaration of his feelings, as in so much of the fic he liked? He tried to imagine just walking up to him and announcing that he was in love with him, and his brain locked up a little, because every other time he'd pictured this, it ended with Rocket slugging and/or shooting him.

Take him out on a date, or to dinner? Rocket would be so suspicious if he asked that they would never even leave the ship; Peter would be interrogated, possibly at gunpoint, and would end up spilling out his feelings under duress. Cook something for him here and surprise him with dinner, then. Peter could apparently cook in fic, which is where that idea had come from, but in actuality had been raised by feral space pirates and regarded cooking with superstitious fear. Other people could take raw ingredients and make edible food; Peter made horror and black smoke and disappointment.

Planning how best to approach Rocket about this became sidetracked by thinking of all the things he would be free to do with -- and to, and have done to him by -- Rocket. All the fan art, all the fic, every fantasy he'd ever had about him, all rolling together in his mind at once -- there was so much he wanted, but it was safest to assume that Rocket might have little to no experience with sex. He would be making love to a virgin, and not only a virgin, but one of an entirely different species.

That reminded him that he didn't know what to expect, if -- _when_ , he reminded himself with a happy squirm -- he went to bed with Rocket. When it was just a fantasy, he'd decided he'd be fine with either option: a humanoid cock similar to his own, or what the shippers irreverently referred to as raccoon peen. He'd fantasized himself about both, and after thinking about it in concrete reality rather than fantasy, he thought he would still be fine, either way. No matter what, it would be Rocket.

He did want to know in advance, though, just to know what he'd be working with. Things could get complicated. It occurred to him that Gamora's fic might contain the answer, and recalled Rocket saying she'd put everything he'd told her into it. Maybe he could use it like a roadmap, a guide to how Rocket wanted things to go.

He would go to Gamora when he was done at the helm and demand she give him a link. She owed him that much, at least. He was trying to imagine what a fic built entirely around the things that Rocket wanted would be like when the airlock unsealing startled him -- he'd forgotten that Rocket was the one relieving Drax this time. He got up from the pilot's chair and turned toward the door, hoping his face looked somehow normal and calm and didn't betray that he'd been thinking about what kind of sex positions he and Rocket might be able to get into.

For his part, Rocket wasn't looking at Peter's face. He'd been eating a protein bar as he climbed the stairs to the cockpit, and his mouth was hanging open with a wad of half-chewed mush visible, staring at Peter's shirtless chest. Peter had forgotten about it, as involved with the inside of his own head as he'd been, and had come running up here straight from a workout in the cargo bay. 

"Where's your shirt?" Rocket asked, choking down the mouthful of food and trying to set his own face straight.

"I was working out. Because I can't sleep. And I -- uh. Decided to come up here for a while. Because I can't sleep." _I'm ten years old again,_ Peter thought, _and trying to talk to a girl. This is ridiculous. I should just pass him a note that says 'Do you like me? [ ]YES [ ] NO.'_

"Maybe you're the one who should go to bed, Quill," Rocket said, looking him over critically now. "You look like shit."

"Thanks," Peter said, brushing past him to the airlock as Rocket came down towards the front of the cockpit. "I've always treasured your brutal honesty, that's nice."

"Just sayin', don't get pissy," Rocket said in a reasonable tone. "You tell me to go to bed all the time like you're my babysitter, I thought that's what we were doing."

 _I don't know **what** we're doing yet, but I'm going to figure it out soon,_ Peter thought. Out loud he said, "What are friends for?" and headed off to Gamora's quarters. He had a fic to read.

=====

When Gamora opened the door to her quarters, Peter knew for a fact he'd woken her up -- she was in pajamas and her hair was tied back -- but she looked as calm and serene and unruffled as ever. He wanted to smack her, both for her continued serenity in the face of his lovesick flailing over Rocket, and for looking fresh as a daisy when he felt like hammered-flat shit.

"I want to read it," he said firmly, and she blinked at him.

"Read what?"

"You know what. The fic you wrote for Rocket."

"I have no idea --" she denied, and Peter cut her off, righteousness making him more brave than he would ordinarily be.

"I overheard you two talking, Gamora. You set it up."

"Why would you think that?" she asked, eyes narrowed.

"One, because you're an augmented super-assassin. You can hear a fart from a half-mile away if you want to. You knew I was standing right there, and you wanted me to hear. Two, your goddamn username is _shippedroquill1st_ , Gamora. You are the biggest fangirl ever and you want to see us get together. And I'm in. I'm gonna talk to him, but I want to read the fic first."

A truly terrifying grin spread across her features, and Peter flinched. "I get pictures," she demanded through that grin, like she was negotiating for a hostage.

"What? What kind of pictures?" Peter asked with true fear running through him.

"I'll settle for innocent, fluffy pictures, you two hugging or kissing or -- oooh, _yes_ , dancing together. But I get pictures of you two to post to the chatroom. _I will own that place forever,_ " she said gleefully.

"You would exploit two of your closest friends for chatroom cred?" Peter asked in shock. "What kind of person are you?"

"The kind of person who has watched two idiots pine for each other for months and wants some kind of resolution, thank you," Gamora said primly, crossing her arms and staring at Peter with her brow arched. "It has been _terrible_ watching you both, and I demand satisfaction."

"I get to see the pictures first. And if Rocket gets pissed, I am _not_ getting between you two."

"Fine," Gamora said. "I'll send you the link."

Peter turned away to go to his own quarters, but she called after him softly. "Please be careful with him, Peter. He thinks so badly of himself. He practically worships you and thinks he isn't worthy of you. If you hurt him, I will make your death last for _days_ ," she promised.

"I'll be careful," he said, and went to read the roadmap to making Rocket understand how he felt.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Gamora writes fic. Peter makes plans. Rocket scares the shit out of him and all of his plans fall by the wayside...in such a way that Gamora triumphs, of course.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You get another short chapter today!

For Rocket, being knocked unconscious wasn't true unconsciousness -- it was a reset. He was built to withstand an enormous amount of abuse and bounce right back, his skeleton reinforced with metal struts and his partially-cybernetic, genetically-enhanced brain protected with metal plating in his skull. If he received enough trauma to his head, his brain would shut down and restart as a way of clearing out the nonsense input produced by an impact, and re-route itself around any damage until it could heal on its own. He was used to it. He sometimes forgot that Peter wasn't.

He experienced it as an instantaneous, almost invisible edit in his consciousness, a momentary blip of black that required him to figure out, upon a reboot, what had happened while he was down. One minute he's bitching at Peter about being sure that the burnt-out floor their current mission would require them to cross would hold both of their weight; the next he's held in Peter's arms, twelve feet down from where they'd started.

"God, baby, please be okay -- come on, Rocket, start yelling at me, tell me what a fucking dumbass I am, just open your eyes --" Peter was saying, holding Rocket a lot closer than simple worry about his health would require, his face pale and shocked and horrified when Rocket did open his eyes and look up at him.

"You're a fucking dumbass," Rocket said. "I'm fine, just a reset. Must have hit my head."

Peter swept him up to his face in relief and kissed the top of his head, breathing deeply into his fur, muttering against him, "You scared the shit out of me, oh shit, I thought you were dead. Baby, don't you _ever_ do that to me again."

He couldn't understand what was wrong with Peter all of a sudden -- why he was holding him like this, calling him baby with absolutely no sarcasm and genuine affection tinged with fear -- but he wasn't going to turn it down, either. Maybe it looked scarier than it actually was, to see him reset like that. He wasn't sure how bad it looked, but surely it couldn't be any worse than Rocket getting so drunk he passed out and had to be carried home. He waited, but Peter seemed to be perfectly happy to hold him like this for as long as Rocket cared to let him, and it was just starting to be weird enough that he was going to start demanding to be released when Peter spoke, mouth still pressed to the fur between his ears.

"I had this all planned out better. I was gonna join you up in the cockpit tomorrow night, after everybody else was asleep, and I was gonna sit there and watch the stars for a while with you, and then I was gonna tell you I was in love with you. Just like in the fic Gamora wrote. Like you told Gamora you wanted it to happen. But you just scared the fuck out of me -- you looked like you were dead, Rocket, I swear to god I thought you were -- and I don't think I can wait. So -- I love you. Please don't ever scare me like that again, I can't handle it."

Rocket struggled free enough to be able to look into Peter's eyes. "Say that again," he demanded, suddenly sure that the blow to his head and the subsequent reset had fried something.

"The whole thing? I don't even remember how I said it, little too freaked out because I thought you _died_."

"Just the important part," Rocket said, staring at him from closer than he'd ever been before. It felt even more unreal than coming back out of the black of a reset always did, being so close to him.

"I love you..?" Peter said uncertainly, looking as if he thought Rocket was going to punch him, a flinch just waiting to bloom around his eyes and mouth.

"You do?" Rocket heard himself ask as if from very, very far away.

"Yeah. For a long time now."

Rocket could not formulate a single thought. There was a complete disconnect between his still-ringing brain and his mouth, and he could only gape at Peter helplessly while he mentally wallowed in disbelief and brand-new, heartbreaking hope.

"Are you -- are you gonna answer one way or the other? Because I'm kinda freaking out all over again." Peter looked terrified, and if either of their hearts was actually breaking, it was Peter's.

"Yeah, sorry -- I do too," Rocket finally managed to say, cringing inwardly at how he'd made Peter wait. "I mean, I'm in love with you. Is this actually happening?"

"I'm pretty sure it is, yeah," Peter said, his smile brilliant and sudden and beautiful. He leaned down toward Rocket again and then drew back slightly. "Uh, I kinda want to kiss you, but I'd rather wait until we're alone and can, you know, figure out how it's gonna work without Gamora taking pictures."

"What?" Rocket glanced around the burned-out, half-destroyed room they had fallen into, and yes, Gamora was taking pictures with a holo-stick. As he watched, she took a selfie with he and Peter as her backdrop, flashing the lens the thumbs-up sign that Peter had taught them all along with some other, ruder gestures. He directed one of those gestures at her right now, hoping he fucked up her picture.

"Good fucking god, she never gives up," Rocket groaned.

"I'm glad she didn't," Peter said, and stood up with Rocket in his arms, apparently determined to carry him.

"I can walk, you know. I'm fine," Rocket complained, knowing that he didn't actually want to be put down, and pretty sure Peter would just sail on back to the ship carrying him like a newlywed no matter what he said.

"I know," Peter said, mouth close to Rocket's ear. "And I'm not putting you down until we're in your quarters, and that's just so I can put you on the bed, so deal with it."

A sharp, unfamiliar twist of excitement and anticipation went through him. He was going to be alone with him soon. In bed with him. He had absolutely no idea, other than what he'd read and conjured up inside the privacy of his own head, what would actually happen, but he wanted this, wanted Peter, more than anything he'd ever stolen in his life.

As they passed by Gamora, who was still snapping pictures with the air of a proud parent watching their brilliant, gifted child, Rocket reached out and smacked her on the shoulder as Peter carried him past.

"You're a conniving, lying _bitch_. Thank you," Rocket said to her, and she smiled and tilted her head as she considered the pair the two of them made together.

"I never really got the size difference kink before. I do now. You two idiots are adorable together," she said. "If you make a mess of this, I will kill both of you in the most painful and demeaning way I know." She leaned in, looking into first Rocket's eyes, then Peter's. "And I know many, _many_ ways. Have fun." She turned and headed for the edge of the wrecked hole in the upper floor, nimbly climbing up Groot's offered branches and disappearing from sight.

"She scares me," Rocket muttered. "I don't think I'm gonna be able to sleep tonight."

"I wasn't planning on letting you, anyway," Peter said with a grin, instructing Groot to lift both of them up to the next floor so that he didn't have to relinquish his hold on Rocket.

"Never been with a human before," Rocket felt compelled to admit. "Never been with _anybody_ before."

"That's okay. I've never been with a Rocket before, so we'll figure it out as we go."

"You don't mind? I mean, how I am?"

"I like how you are. Do you mind that I'm Terran?"

"Eh, I got used to it. You're not bad," Rocket said, seeing the ship looming up ahead.

"Not bad? You haven't seen it all, just wait."

"Does fan art count? I've seen it all and then some."

"You're gonna have to show me your favorite pictures sometime. I've got a collection I'd like to share," Peter said, smiling down at him.

"Deal," Rocket said, and then the airlock was unsealing, and they were home.

=====

shippedroquill1st: I have an announcement to make: ROQUILL IS REAL AND I HAVE PROOF.  
peter_loves_rocket: more of your manips, shipped?  
shippedroquill1st: no manip necessary, this is the real thing. BEHOLD.

Gamora grinned in anticipation as she pasted in a series of links. This was her moment of triumph, her crowning glory. Not even saving the galaxy had felt this sweet and well-earned. She watched the chat, counting the seconds as the other chatters clicked, viewed, and came screaming back to the chatroom.

guardmygalaxy: that really looks real  
guardmygalaxy: please tell me it's real  
peter_loves_rocket: ARE U FUCKING KIDDING ME  
iheartrocket: ????????????????????  
rocket_raccoon: this really does look real, it doesn't look like any news holos i've ever seen before  
rocket_raccoon: WHERE DID U GET THIS SHIPPED?  
shippedroquill1st: I took these pictures earlier today.  
shippedroquill1st: Rocket fell through a floor and was knocked out and Peter thought he was dead  
shippedroquill1st: and told him he loved him when he came to.

The series of images that Gamora had linked began with Peter holding Rocket in his arms as he knelt among the wreckage Rocket had fallen into, his face drawn with shock and fear. Rocket hung limply in his arms, eyes closed. In the next image, Rocket was awake and aware, and Peter had clasped him to his chest and was kissing the top of his head, looking deliriously relieved. The third image showed them almost nose to nose, as if about to kiss, looking into each other's eyes in a manner that could only be described as "loving."

iheartrocket: how would you know that? were you there lol

Gamora pasted one final link into the chat window and sat back, waiting. The link led to a fourth image: Gamora leaning into the frame, giving a cheesy grin and a thumbs-up, while in the background, Peter was still holding Rocket, and Rocket was glaring at the camera and flipping it off.

  
_Illustrated by Kamechuu; commissioned by[Readasaur](http://readasaur.tumblr.com/). [Click here for full-size version](http://i.imgur.com/pSIvlqg.jpg)._

guardmygalaxy: GAMORA GAMORA GAMORA OMG  
rocket_raccoon: OH MY GOD SHIPPED  
rocket_raccoon: YOU'RE GAMORA  
shippedroquill1st: I told you I shipped Roquill first. *smug*  
iheartrocket: holy shit omg this is so awesome i think i'm gonna pee a little  
guardmygalaxy: ALL HAIL GODDESS GAMORA, QUEEN OF SHIPPERS  
rocket_raccoon: they're totally doing it right now aren't they?  
rocket_raccoon: i bet peter's getting some of that fine-ass raccoon peen  
shippedroquill1st: Rocket would like everyone to know he has a human cock, and I quote, "big swinging balls"  
shippedroquill1st: He is absolutely vile to live with at times, you just don't know.  
shippedroquill1st: And they are totally doing it right now, yes. At least the airlocks make our quarters soundproof.

Settling in to chat, now that she had assured her fame as not only a Guardian of the Galaxy, but a Guardians BNF, Gamora smiled with the satisfaction of a difficult mission, carried out successfully.

She hadn't lied, their quarters _were_ soundproof, but she could still hear the faintest rhythmic noise from the direction of Rocket's quarters, regardless. She happily accepted it as applause.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next chapter: smut. Fluffy, romantic, smutty smut. Just the kind of fic Peter likes to read.


End file.
